Limerence
by Sotakyoto
Summary: Warning! This is Shonen ai, meaning, it features boy on boy love. If you do not like this particular genre, please don't read!  This is the first chapter of a short story, in a compilation about unexpected love and shenanigans in Rune Midgard :P
1. Chapter 1  What the

Our story begins on a sunny afternoon, with birds singing, Lunatics hopping around, and many brave adventurers, traveling the world in search of glory. Though trouble was always easier to find for some reason. Anyway. All of that, of course, couldn't be witnessed, in the deepest, most dangerous mines of Einbech, where one particularly desperate adventurer, was trying to refill his empty pockets with some money that was given for all the valuable ore and monster cards found in this place. We are going to meet him very, very soo-

-"JUST DIE ALREADY, YOU LITTLE MENACE!"

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, a young, aspiring hunter named Morgan, sent another arrow flying towards a little ragged teddy bear caught in an ankle snare, which he successfully dodged. Again. The bear scratched the back of its head, eyeing all the arrows sticking out from the ground around him. Morgan could swear that the bear was taunting him. Don't judge a man… well, a bear by his size, he thought. When he first heard of this place and its inhabitants, he was sure that, as he himself said, he would rock this place. And with every wasted arrow that these damned bears dodged, it was getting more and more embarrassing.

The next arrow turned out to be lucky though; it hit him right in the middle, and with a quiet thud, the teddy dropped his tiny hammer and fell down, the small body starting to slowly merge with the ground underneath.

-"This…this is horrible!" The hunter leaned on his bow slightly, sighing, a bit disappointed that the bear didn't drop anything of value. "Three of them…That's all I managed to kill so far! And it's been hours since I entered these mines." He rubbed his stomach and thought about the small jar of honey that he got from one of the bears before. Morgan would gladly deal with its contents to stop his tummy from complaining, but reminded himself that it's the only food he had with him, and until he finds at least five more pieces of Elunium (which turned out to be quite a challenge), to cover up the expenses of getting to Einbroch in the first place, he wouldn't leave.

Morgan stretched and fished out another ankle snare from his backpack. Not that he was afraid of the monsters lurking this place, but there was a lot of toxic gas flying around, apparently so toxic that it formed its own, angry form, along with some weird enchanted ore called Obsidian flying around, so a lot of them attacking at the same time turned out to be rather bothersome. Luckily he wore extra thick boots today, say what you want but those things bite hard.

Deeper into the mines he went, gradually noticing that it got more difficult to breathe with every minute. Wondering if he suddenly became claustrophobic, Morgan tried to whistle something to keep himself entertained. When breathing became such a problem that he had to stop and rethink his path, Morgan had to find something to lean on, or else he would get sick. Black smoke enveloped him, sending Morgan into a cough fit, making his eyes water. Dizzy and disoriented he turned away, trying to cover his mouth. Still leaning on one of the wooden planks that helped supporting the walls and ceiling, he chuckled.

-"Wow, I never thought I'd get so tired that it would be difficult to move" He looked at the ground, gradually regaining his senses and tilted his head, blinking at the strange round shadow that covered most of his standing place. _That's a strange shadow._ He thought. _Wait…_

Just now he realized that everything around him was buzzing and vibrating, the black smoke that gave him such a hard time actually…had a source. A huge, rusty and round source, at which Morgan could do nothing but stare. It looked like a huge iron ball with feet and it was making a horrible noise that made the hair on the back of his hair stand. Thankfully the creature didn't seem to notice him, which gave him an opportunity to quietly move backwards in order to avoid meeting with it face to face."RSX-0806", those words engraved onto its side were the last things he saw before stumbling and falling on his behind, which was followed by a loud "Ow!".

When the RSX turned around, raising its huge saw, showing off the whole monstrosity of what this great machine was, a bright ray of light suddenly came from behind it, which hit Morgan's eyes and made him yelp in surprise. Instinctively he moved further back, covering his head: The roar the machine made was unbearable, his eyes stung, and frankly, he was scared. But curiosity shunned fear deeper inside and made him turn his head to look. It's not every day you get to see something this huge and not be ripped to pieces at that very moment. Morgan squinted, trying to understand what was going on over there, but the smoke and the light mixed together made it impossible to see what was going on. Suddenly he felt a jolt of such force that it made him fall on his back, he could swear he heard someone screaming, but was too confused to make out the words. Pressing his back against the walls of the tunnel for safety, he hugged his knees and waited for whatever that was happening, to be over.

Gradually the bright light disappeared, the vibration that felt more like an earthquake by now calmed down, and the black thick smoke was slowly fading away, revealing a figure standing a bit away from where Morgan was shakily trying to stand figure turned out to be a white haired man that looked like… a monk? No, a champion. Yes, it was a tall, but not particularly strong built champion, that stood above the dark remains of the RSX. His clothing was still white, despite the dirty environment, which meant that he surely wasn't traveling by foot to get this far. What was curious about him, was that he didn't even break a sweat it seemed, which looked kind of comical.

-"Empty again. Darn it, it's the sixth one this week!" He rubbed his neck and glanced over at Morgan, finally noticing him. "Are you okay? Did it hit you?"

Walking over to the stunned hunter, he dug in his pocket for a bit and threw something at him. Apparently conscious enough to catch whatever the champion had thrown, Morgan looked down and was surprised to see a small Yggdrasil berry lying on the palm of his hand.

"I don't need it anymore, but you look like you might. Well, carry on with whatever you're doing in here, this thing won't be giving you any trouble for a while."

Still looking at the berry, Morgan suddenly felt a power surge, his head stopped hurting and his sight cleared. He realized that he got a blessing from the unknown champion before he teleported and left Morgan alone in the deserted tunnel. Suddenly getting what happened, he jumped to his feet, looking around

-"H-hey, wait—" But Morgan was too late. The champion took off and it was unlikely that he would appear here any time soon. A bit disappointed, Morgan picked up his belongings that got scattered across the floor and headed back in search of other, less horrible monsters. The Yggdrasil berry he was still holding, felt cool and soft in hand. That was his first time ever holding one, and it felt weird. This whole day was weird.

Back to the upper levels of the mines, Morgan wandered aimlessly for another half an hour, before deciding to call it a day. He got lucky, and 10 newly acquired pieces of Elunium lay safely in his backpack. Everything seemed to be normal again, and the only reminder of the stranger that killed that monster was the berry Morgan carefully put in his pocket. Taking a butterfly wing from his inner pocket, he glanced around for the last time.

_I didn't even ask for his name._

Morgan sighed again and squashed the wing in his hand and threw the dust down to his feet, letting it teleport him back to where he came from. He needed a shower badly.


	2. Chapter 2 Oh look

Wow, long time no updates, huh. I hope that at least some of you read this, and wanna find out what's gonna happen next Feel free to leave a review if you'd like, it'd make me real happy!

Sorry for any grammar mistakes and such, English is my third language, and sometimes I can mix things up.

Prontera. Always noisy, always full of people, packed with merchants and traders, priests, knights and other folk, rushing about their daily duties. Morgan loved this place… not. Growing up in Payon, he was used to the quiet and calm routine, surrounded by deep forests and high mountains, the village seemed to have reached Zen centuries ago. Morgan missed his home, missed his family and friends, but he never regretted taking this journey and deciding to see the world.

Even if he didn't like this place, there was nothing to do about it; Prontera was the capital, and naturally, all the travelers always came here to brag about their adventures. Most of the guilds were located here, recruiting new members, and the rarest weapons and items, would always be on display, waiting for their future owners. When organ first arrived here, he was completely shocked, in a good way. In his entire life, he hasn't seen anything like this, the sight almost made him dizzy. While he was marveling at the beauty of this place, someone already pushed him, stepped on his foot, tried to steal his money (failed though, can't steal from someone who doesn't have anything in the first place) and made him learn the newest swearwords, when he accidentally bumped into a passing by blacksmith. This day was no exception.

Morgan was almost out of money, and sleeping under the stars this night, wasn't anything he was too eager about. Six months into his travels, he came across some things that he believed were worth a few thousand Zeny. He was just too tired to do anything today, he just wanted to rent a room and sleep. Disoriented and hungry, he was wondering about Prontera aimlessly, looking for some place to sell his stuff. Maybe if he was focusing on the street, and not on the events that took place a few days ago, he'd get there faster. But the image of the white haired guy , reaching out to bless him, refused to leave his mind. He really was moved by that action, and for some reason, wanted to see his face again. Perhaps he was feeling embarrassed for looking so weak in that smoky mine, pitiful enough for someone to waste their time on him. Or perhaps he just wanted to ask him, what was that thing that almost slashed him in two. It was strange.

Eyeing a white ribbon on some cute high priestess' back, he suddenly stopped dead in his track and didn't dare move: He heard a painfully familiar voice. Frantically looking around him, trying to find it's source, he almost knocked some merchant over. Not caring about what names she decided to call him at that moment, he finally saw the back of the man he was thinking about just a few seconds ago. And a few days before that, but that's not important. He just stood there and stared, not sure of what he was supposed to do or say.

-'' So I see that there's no time left to waste, and that particular scholar, you know the guy, yeah, he was being a pain in the ass all week, anyway, he is just standing there and..-''

Surrounded by two priests and a huge paladin, the champion waived his hands around, laughed and rambled on about something Morgan did not even try to begin to understand. His back was turned to Morgan, and for the longest time nobody seemed to notice him, until finally one of the priests tilted his head and pointed at the hunter, wondering if anybody knew who he was.

-''Sorry, can we help you? '' His eyes were blue and looked very kind, he was the shortest one of the group. Morgan snapped out of it, but for some reason was unable to say anything remotely relevant to the question addressed to him, and when the champion actually turned and looked at him, the only thing Morgan could do was squeeze out an unsure laugh and back away a little, looking really suspicious.

-''Um… you probably… haha, you most likely don't even remember but…'' He didn't understand why he wasn't able to use words that would make sense, and make him look a little bit less like a moron, and more like a sane person. He didn't dare look at anyone's face, and even had to stop mumbling and take a deep breath. Finally, he looked up at his face (he noticed that his eyes were emerald green, it looked kind of surreal and scary, it was probably the sun or something…) and smiled.

-''Thanks for what you did, I'd be really screwed if you weren't for you. …So um, yeah… Thanks!''

Completely red, for no apparent reason, shaking all over, Morgan hurried away, hoping that those people would forget what just happened and never think about it again. It was a good thing that Morgan was too consumed by his thoughts of shame, or he'd surely yelp at the feeling of someone squeezing his shoulder. Turning around to see what is holding him in place, his jaw almost dropped when he realized that the very same champion that Morgan tried to communicate with earlier, was standing right behind him, looking a bit confused, but smiling anyway.

-''Hey… you're that little guy from the mines, right?''

Disregarding the 'little' part of the sentence, Morgan nodded and put his hands into his pockets, unsure of what was supposed to be done right now.

-''Didn't recognize you at first, you know, it was quite smoky back there. But I'm glad to see that you're okay, didn't expect to meet anyone in that damned place!''

Morgan wondered if this guy would never stop smiling. His voice was pleasant and WHY THE HELL DID MORGAN THINK ABOUT ALL THIS RIGHT NOW. This guy was just… a guy. Morgan never felt uneasy around people, was always ready to communicate, happy to hang out, to learn from others. How come it was so hard to focus and NOT feel like he was going to faint any moment?

-''You don't talk much, do you? My name is Reece by the way, what's yours?''

Morgan had no idea why he was still talking to him, but decided to just go with the flow. Smiling back shyly, he decided to take the bull by the horns, maybe they can be good pals? Why not?

Half an hour later, they were already sitting on the benches of a small garden, just behind the western wall of the city. It was really calm there, and surprisingly, not many people visited that place. Morgan and Reece were talking to each other in a way like really good friends do, both surprised at how easy it was, just talking about irrelevant things.

Reece turned out to be a really fun guy, one of those that love to share their thoughts, and love to hear what others have to say. He was really interested in Payon, he'd never been there before, and Morgan made it sound so perfect, that he was tempted to visit the place. Their childhoods were so different, and both wanted to know more about each other. Morgan was interested about all the cities that Reece visited, he was quite a rich man, while Reece was interested in Morgan's humble adventures.

-''Wow, I've never thought that there's so many interesting places in Rune-Midgard… I envy you, you can travel anywhere with enough cash on your hands. I bet it's faster and safer as well…''

-''Are you kidding me? You're the one that's having all the adventures! Come on, who would actually walk the whole way from Geffen to Prontera? I'll tell you, only true adventurers! You should be proud! And seriously, what's that sound?''

Reece smiled smugly, and Morgan jumped up, suddenly realising that all this time, his stomach was rumbling, trying to get their attention. Now he felt how truly tired and hungry he was, that almost made him lose his balance. He sat back down on the bench, smiling goofily at Reece, who, on the other hand looked worried.

-'' Hey, how about I buy you something to eat? You look kinda hungry…''

Morgan felt like it was useless to resist, besides, he was in no mood to turn down food, especially from someone who can afford it.

-'' Sure… that would be awesome. Haven't eaten anything since this morning.''

And those were the final words that made Reece grab Morgan's hand and basically drag him back to the gates. Knowing Prontera like the back of his own hand, Reece made sure Morgan would not feel hungry for days, treating him to one of the best meals in the local tavern. Oh and after some brief persuading, he made sure that Morgan would get enough rest in Reece's own apartment. He just wouldn't risk leaving a drunk hunter in a hotel all on his own.


End file.
